Irish fans and camper vans finally reach end of the road

EURO 2012 ROAD TRIP: DAY 14:IF GROUP C was a Polish road, Ireland's position would not have been hopeless going into last night's match. Certainly, based on my experience, there is nowhere from which some local drivers could not overtake what's in front of them, however reckless the manoeuvre required.

Even four points clear with a game to go, neither Spain nor Croatia would have been safe.

There have been times, watching a car simultaneously pass our rental van and the articulated truck we’re stuck behind on a narrow winding road, when I’ve wondered whether the driver has a plan B if something unforeseen happens: such as – perish the thought – a car coming the other way. But they always seemed to get away with it somehow.

To be honest, I’ve been too worried about my rented wing mirrors to spend much time fretting about the problems of other drivers.

The width of many of Poland’s two-way roads seems to have been calculated on the basis that external mirrors are an optional extra on vehicles, carried at the drivers’ own risk.

Thus, every time I meet an articulated truck, despite hugging the white line to my right, I have to wince slightly for my mirror on the left as the lorry’s mirror passes it, apparently three inches away.

In the campsites of Gdansk and Torun, I checked furtively for damage to other vans.

Astonishingly they all seemed intact, although appearances sometimes lie. In Torun, for example, I met a group of lads who admitted having lost a wing mirror in action.

Rather than risk the damage assessment of the rental company, they found a Polish Fiat dealer and got him to replace it. The operation cost €240, but at €60 for each of the occupants, and the van like new again, it was deemed a bargain.

Anyway, our original mirrors still extant (touch wood), we finally got back to Poznan yesterday and couldn’t believe the change in the place.

Since the soft night on which Ireland’s hopes were first dashed against Croatia – it seems much longer than a week ago – the sun had come out and temperatures doubled. Suddenly it was high summer in Poznan and we barely recognised the town.

If nothing else, some of the Irish fans would go home with tans but, inevitably, the dramatically improved weather also brought a faint return of optimism during the day.

If the rain of the first two games didn’t suit us, maybe the Mediterranean climate would and we could at least end the tournament on a high note, people were saying.

Meanwhile, as the business end of the competition prepared to get under way without us, the businesses of Poznan were missing us already. The campsites and hotels, and the bars of the old town were all doing well again yesterday, when the temperatures conspired to add genuine thirst to the excuses most Irish fans don’t need for beer drinking.

But had Irish qualification been still viable before last night’s match, it would have been an even greater bonanza. In such an event, the likes of the camper van village expected almost to double its capacity from the night of the Croatia game, when a camper van with five occupants was paying €150 a night for its pitch.

No wonder the camp management had cheered for Ireland in the earlier group games and shared our disappointment when we lost. In the event, the atmosphere for the Italian match was nothing like the frenzy they and we had hoped it might be.

The camper vans and the Irish team had both reached the end of the road last night. And the good news is that at least one of us (touch wood again) had avoided a car crash.